Extraditing Gary McKinnon Is Against His Human Rights Says Lawyer

A top government law officer has failed to take human rights into consideration while acting against a British hacker accused of breaking into US military systems to face trials in the US, the hacker’s defence lawyer said.

Attorney Edward Fitzgerald, Gary McKinnon’s defence lawyer, notified the High Court that sending the hacker to the US carried an “avoidable and unnecessary” risk of some serious psychological suffering.

In his latest attempts to stop the hacker’s extradition, McKinnon’s defence lawyer told the Court that extraditing the self-confessed hacker could result in the risk of psychosis or suicide, as he is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of autism.

Fitzgerald asserted that the Crown Prosecution Service as well as its senior official, Keir Starmer, who ruled there was “insufficient evidence” to back a UK trial under the Computer Misuse Act, had failed to take “humanitarian considerations” into account when they put forth the decision.

In his argument, the lawyer told the court, “The Crown Prosecution Service wrongly failed to address the specific human rights issues, and the humanitarian issue, raised by the claimant's Aspergers syndrome.”

McKinnon’s defence lawyers have urged the High Court to repeal the prosecutor’s ruling, as well as the UK government’s decision to extradite him to the US.

The Daily Mail has backed Gary McKinnon in a national campaign that started last week and this alone will give the British citizen a lifeline that will hopefully prove vital. He signed a confession earlier this year to avoid extradition to the US and this might have played against him.